Battle of Kursk: Map

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The
Battle of Kursk refers to German and Soviet operations
on the Eastern Front of
World War II in the vicinity of the
city of Kursk in July and
August 1943.It remains both the largest series of
armoured clashes, including the
Battle of
Prokhorovka, and the costliest single day of aerial warfare to date. It was the
last strategic offensive the Germans were able to mount in the
east. The resulting decisive Soviet victory gave the Red Army the
strategic initiative for the rest of the war.

The
Germans hoped to shorten their lines by eliminating the Kursk
salient (also
known as the Kursk bulge), created in the aftermath of their defeat
at the Battle of
Stalingrad. They envisioned pincers breaking through
its northern and southern flanks to achieve yet another great
encirclement of Red Army forces. However, the Soviets had excellent
intelligence of Hitler's intentions. This and repeated German
delays to wait for new weapons, mainly Tiger
and Panther tanks, gave the Red Army
time to construct elaborate, layered defenses and position large
reserve forces for a strategic counterattack.

Once the
German forces had exhausted themselves against the in-depth
defenses, the Soviets responded with their own counteroffensives,
which allowed the Red Army to retake Orel and Belgorod on 5 August,
and Kharkov on 23
August, and push back the Germans across a broad
front.

Though the Red Army had had success in winter, this was the first
successful strategic Soviet summer offensive of the war. The model
strategic operation earned a place in war college curricula. When
the week of combat around Kursk had ended, the perceived
infallibility of blitzkrieg was destroyed, along with the future
hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east.
Kursk announced to the world that for every offensive theory, there
is a suitable defensive one available to those who devote the
requisite thought necessary to develop it.Glantz, Soviet
Defensive Tactics at Kursk. The Battle of Kursk was the first
battle in which a Blitzkrieg
offensive had been defeated before it could break through enemy
defenses and into its strategic depths.

Background

In the
winter of 1942â€“43, the Red Army had conclusively won the Battle of
Stalingrad. The German
Sixth Army had been destroyed, along with about 800,000 German
and other Axis troops, seriously depleting Axis strength in the
east.

In 1917, the Germans had built the famous Hindenburg Line on the Western Front, shortening their lines
and thereby strengthening their defense. They planned on repeating
this strategy in the USSR and started construction of a massive
series of defensive works known as the
Panther-Wotan line. They intended
to retreat to the line late in 1943 and bleed the Soviets against
it while their own forces recuperated.

Most of the German front commanders agreed a defensive stance
should be the priority, to contain Soviet offensives and deliver
counter blows. Hitler accepted this advice. Erich von Manstein
insisted first strike was still an option and an offensive to pinch
out the Soviet bulge at Kursk would be achieveable before moving
further south to recover more lost territory. Manstein wanted to
attack in May, but owing to the poor tank strength of the German
Army, Hitler delayed it until July when newer tanks minimized the
risk of defeat. The High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW))
hoped to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front.

German plans

Manstein pressed for a new offensive along the same lines he had
just successfully pursued at Kharkov, when he had cut off an
overextended Red Army offensive. He suggested tricking the Red Army into
attacking in the south against the desperately re-forming Sixth
Army, leading them into the Donets
Basin in the eastern Ukraine.He would
then turn south from Kharkov on the eastern side of the Donets
river towards Rostov and trap the
entire southern wing of the Red Army
against the Sea of
Azov.

Oberkommando des Heeres
(OKH) did not approve of Manstein's plan, and instead turned their
attention to the obvious bulge in the lines between Orel and
Kharkov. Two Red Army Fronts, the Voronezh and Central Fronts,
occupied the ground in and around the salient, and pinching it off
would trap almost a fifth of the Red Army's manpower. It would also result
in a much straighter and shorter line, and recapture the
strategically useful railway city of Kursk, located on
the main north-south railway line from Rostov to Moscow.

In March, the plans crystallized. Walter
Model's Ninth Army would
attack southwards from Orel while Hermann
Hoth's Fourth Panzer
Army and Army
Detachment "Kempf" under the overall command of Manstein would
attack northwards from Kharkov. They planned to meet near Kursk,
but if the offensive went well, they would have permission to
continue forward on their own initiative, with a general plan to
re-establish a new line at the Don
River, several weeks' march to the east.

Contrary to his recent behavior, Hitler gave the OKH considerable
control over the planning of the operation. Over the next few
weeks, they continued to increase the scope of the forces attached
to the front, stripping the entire German line of practically
anything remotely useful for deployment in the upcoming operation.
They first set the attack for 4 May, but delayed in order to allow
more time for new weapons to arrive from Germany, especially the
new Tiger and Panther tanks. Hitler postponed the offensive several
more times. On 5 May, the launch date became 12 June. But due to
the potential threat of an Allied landing in Italy, and delays in
armour deliveries Hitler set the launch date to 20 June, and on 17
June it was pushed back to 3 July. On 21 June, he postponed it
until 3 July, and then later to 5 July.V.M Kulish & A.J.P
Taylor 1974, p. 170.

The basic concept behind the German offensive was the traditional
(and, for the Germans, hitherto usually successful) double-envelopment, or
Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle). The German Army had
long favored such a Cannae-style method, and the tools of Blitzkrieg made these types of tactics even
more effective.Blitzkrieg depended on mass, shock,
and speed to surprise an enemy and defeat him through disruption of
command and supply rather than by destroying all his forces in a
major pitched battle.

However,
such breakthroughs were easier to achieve if they hit an unexpected
location, as the Germans had achieved attacking through the
Ardennes in 1940, Kiev in 1941, and
towards Stalingrad and the Caucasus in
1942. The OKH's plan for the attack on the Kursk salient,
"Operation Citadel", violated the principle of surprise: anyone
with the most basic grasp of military strategy could deduce that
the Kursk salient was the most obvious target for any German
attack. A number of German commanders questioned the idea, notably
Guderian, who asked Hitler:

The German deception plan included defensive-sounding names for
major formations. For example, the 9.Armee was given the
name "Festungsstab II", Fortress Staff II. Model ordered
that recordings were to be made of massed German tanks' engines.
This noise was to be played on loudspeakers to confuse the Soviets
as to the whereabouts of German armour concentrations.BergstrĂ¶m
2007, p. 16. Many German AFVs were painted with new divisional
insignia used only for this campaign. These deception measures,
however, were generally unsuccessful.

Soviet plans

To the West! calls this
Soviet poster, while a Soviet soldier destroys the German To
the East! sign

The Red Army had also begun planning for
their own upcoming summer
offensives, and had settled on a plan that mirrored that of the
Germans. Attacks in front of Orel and Kharkov would
flatten out the line, and potentially lead to a breakout near the
Pripyat
Marshes. However, Soviet commanders had considerable
concerns over the German plans.

The locations of all previous German attacks had caught the Red
Army by surprise, but in this case, Kursk seemed the obvious
target. Moscow received warning of the German plans
through the Lucy spy ring in Switzerland. This was almost unnecessary, since MarshalZhukov had already correctly predicted the
site of the German attack as early as 8 April, when he wrote his
initial report to Stavka (the Red
Army General Staff), in which he also recommended the strategy
eventually followed by the Red Army.

The pattern of the war up until this point had been one of German
offensive success. Blitzkrieg had worked against all
opponents, including the Red Army. On the other hand, Soviet
results during both winters had shown that their own offensives
were now effective. Stalin and some
Stavka officers wanted to strike first. However, the
overwhelming majority of Stavka, most notably Zhukov,
advised waiting for the Germans to exhaust themselves first. Zhukov
wrote in a letter to Stalin on 8 April 1943:

Many of the forces assigned to the defense of the salient were
recent veterans of the Battle of Stalingrad, but the Red Army also
added over one million new men in the first half of 1943. Thus, the
Red Army was larger than in 1942, even after the losses at
Stalingrad. The long delay between the identification of the likely
site of the German attack and the beginning of the offensive gave
the new units an unusually long time to train.

The density of artillery in the salient was unusual; there were
more artillery regiments in the salient than infantry regiments.
The Red Army was determined to grind down attacking German units
with a combination of mines and artillery fire. Indirect fire from
howitzers would stop the German infantry,
while direct fire from 45mm , 57mm , and 85 mm
(3.3") towed anti-tank guns and
76.2mm divisional
field gun would destroy the tanks. In the 13th Army sector
(facing the German Ninth Army on the northern face of the salient)
the density of anti-tank guns was 23.7 guns per kilometre of
defended front. In the 6th
and 7th Guards Army sectors in the
south, the density was lower, about 10 guns per kilometre.

Red Army machinegun crew in
action.

The preparation of the battlefield by Red Army military engineers was thorough. Reports
indicate 503,993 anti-tank mines and
439,348 anti-personnel mines
were laid in the defended area. On average, 1,500 anti-tank and
1,700 anti-personnel mines were laid per kilometre of front. In the
sectors eventually attacked, densities were never lower than 1,400
per kilometre and sometimes reached as high as 2,000 per kilometre.
Red Army engineers also constructed miles of trenches, laid
barbed wire, built anti-tank obstacles,
and constructed thousands of gun and mortar positions.Soviet
deception plans, like the German, were most elaborate; unlike the
German plans, however, the Soviet deceptions were generally
successful. Dummy positions were constructed and dummy aircraft
were placed on false airfields, and false radio traffic sent to
confuse German intelligence. Camouflaging of actual positions and
minefields was excellent; the first warning most German units had
of the presence of Soviet minefields or dug-in guns was their own
vehicles exploding.

Set in the larger vista of the war on the Eastern Front, Kursk is
significant because it demonstrated the Soviet high command and
staff now worked more effectively than OKHâ€”largely due to Stalin finally
being prepared to act on the advice of his professional
intelligence and staff officers, while Hitler was systematically
ignoring his . This was evidenced by the defeat of the
Blitzkrieg in summer campaigning weather and the ability
of the Red Army forces to move from defensive to offensive
operations due to better staff work, larger reserves and better
planning. In these senses, Kursk, and not Stalingrad, can be viewed
as the turning point in the war: certainly the initiative passed
decisively from the Wehrmacht to the Red Army.

State of the Red Air Force

The Red Air Force (VVS) had lost
over 36,900 aircraft in 1941-1942. However the Soviet aircraft
industry had replaced losses in machines, and had now upgraded and
dispensed with obsolete types such as the I-16, MiG-3 and the
LaGG-3. The most widely used Soviet fighters
in the Kursk battle were to be the Yak-1, Yak-7B
and La-5. The La 5FN was considered
to be a match for both the Bf
109 and Fw 190.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p.
22.However, pilot training was short, and lacked thoroughness. The
13,383 Soviet pilots who were trained in 1942 received 13â€“15 flight
hours before combat. Sturmovik and bomber pilots received just 18
and 15 hours respectively. Of the Soviet bomber and ground attack
units, just seven percent of its pilots had seen action prior to
Kursk.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 23. Most Soviet pilots were forced to
train on the type they would fly in combat. As a result, the
Soviets lost 10,600 aircraft to accidents alone up until the summer
of 1943. At the senior command level, the Soviets possessed highly
skilled leaders, such as General Polkovnik Aleksandr Novikov, Commander-in-Chief of
the VVS in the Kursk region. However, a lack of experience at lower
levels led to costly losses.In the aftermath of Kursk, Soviet
aviation rapidly improved its coordination with the ground forces.
Its pilots also received a rapidly improving training program. As a
result, the Soviets were able to build the Red Banner
units, units of highly skilled fighter pilots. Just six months
after Kursk, the ratio of Soviet to German aircraft losses had
fallen from 4:1 to 3:2.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 44.

Sub-operations and nomenclature

Battle of Kursk

For Wehrmacht's OKH,
the Battle of Kursk was a part of the strategic Operation
Citadel Offensive ( ).

Preliminaries

Aviation

The Soviet Air Arm played a significant role in hampering the
German preparations. On 17 April 1943, a raid on the German
airfield at Orsha-South destroyed five Ju 88
reconnaissance aircraft from 1.(F)/AufklĂ¤rungsgruppe 100
and 4.(F)/121, and then three Do 17s/Do 217s of 2.NachtaufklĂ¤rungsstaffel. Three days later, another ten
high-level reconnaissance aircraft were destroyed on the ground. As
a result, the only operational strategic reconnaissance
Staffel was 4.(F)/14.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp. 16-17.

The Luftwaffe was also busy before the main operation.
The tank
factory at Gorkovsky
Avtomobilny Zavod (GAZ) was subjected to a series of heavy
attacks throughout June 1943. On the night of 4/5 June,
He 111s of Kampfgeschwader 1 (KG 1),
KG 3, KG
4, KG 55 and KG 100 dropped 179 tons of bombs, causing
massive destruction to buildings and production lines. All of GAZ
No. 1 plant's 50 buildings, of conveyers, 5,900 pieces of equipment
and 8,000 tank engines were destroyed.BergstrĂ¶m 2007 p. 20 However,
the Germans made an error in target selection. The GAZ plant No. 1
produced only the T-70 light tank. Factory No. 112, the
second-biggest producer of the more formidable T-34, continued
production undisturbed. Soviet production facilities were repaired
or rebuilt within six weeks. In 1943, Factory No. 112 produced
2,851 T-34s, 3,619 in 1944, and 3,255 in 1945. The
Luftwaffe had also failed to hit the Gorkiy Artillery
Factory (No. 92) or the aircraft plant where the Lavochkin La-5 and La 5FN were made. The
Luftwaffe failed to disrupt the Soviet preparation for the coming
battle.

Ground

It took four months before Hitler allowed
Manstein to attack, by which time the
Germans had added 90 ElefantPanzerjĂ¤gers, all 79 flyable Henschel Hs 129ground attack aircraftBergstrĂ¶m 2007,
pp. 124â€“25., as well as 270 Tigers, late
model Panzer Mark-VIs and even a number of
captured T-34s. In total, they assembled some
3,000 tanks and assault guns, 2,110 aircraftBergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp.
123â€“25. and 900,000 men. It formed one of the greatest
concentrations of German fighting power ever put together. Even so,
Hitler expressed doubts about its adequacy.

By this time, Allied action in Western Europe was beginning to have
a significant impact on German military strength. Although actions in North Africa hardly
constituted the Red Army's longed-for second front, the operation there did begin to
tell on the Germans, and in the last quarter of 1942 and the first
half of 1943, 40% of Luftwaffe losses
occurred in the battles over Malta and Tunisia. German air superiority was no longer guaranteed.
The Soviet Air Force outnumbered the Luftwaffe, and were gaining in
technological quality as well. Both air forces possessed very
effective ground-attack aircraft types capable of decimating
armour: the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2
Shturmovik and the German Junkers Ju 87G (Initially Ju 87D-3/5 with a
pair of added Bordkanone 37 mm gunpods).BergstrĂ¶m
2007 p. 79-81; 102; 106; 114; 118.

The start date for the offensive had been moved repeatedly as
delays in preparation had forced the Germans to postpone the
attack. Finally, on 1 July, the orders were issued to attack on 5
July. The following day, MarshalVasilyevskiy warned the Front
commanders (N.F.Vatutin, K.K.Rokossovskiy and I.S.Konev) that the long-awaited German offensive
would begin sometime between 3 and 6 July. For months, the Soviets
had been receiving detailed information on the planning of the
offensive from their Red
Orchestra (German: Rote Kapelle, and the "Lucy Group") espionage organization, whose sources allegedly
included officers in Hermann
GĂ¶ringâ€™s aviation ministry
and other parts of the Nazi administration.

Preliminary fighting started on 4 July 1943 in the south, as
Fourth Panzer Army had elected to
try to take Soviet outposts prior to the main assault on 5 July.
Thus they deliberately sacrificed tactical surprise. Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin,
having received reports that the German offensive was imminent,
ordered Voronezh Front to bombard German positions on the night of
4 July.

In the afternoon, Stuka dive
bombers blew a two-mile-wide gap in the Soviet front lines on
the north in a period of 10 minutes, and then turned for home while
the German artillery opened up to continue
the pounding. Hoth's armored
spearhead, the III Panzer
Corps, then advanced on the Soviet positions around Zavidovka. At the same time, the
GroĂźdeutschland Division attacked Butovo in torrential rain, and the 11th Panzer Division took the
high ground around Butovo. To the west of Butovo, the going proved
tougher for GroĂźdeutschland and the 3rd Panzer Division, which met
stiff Soviet resistance and did not secure their objectives until
midnight. The II SS Panzer Corps
launched preliminary attacks to secure observation posts, and again
met with strong resistance, until assault troops equipped with
flamethrowers cleared the bunkers and outposts.

At 2:30, the Red Army hit back with an artillery bombardment in the north and south. This
barrage by over 3,000 guns and mortars expended about half of the
artillery ammunition for the entire operation. The goal was to
delay and disorganize the German attack. In the northern face, the
Central Front artillery fired mostly against German artillery
positions and managed to suppress 50 of the 100 German batteries
they attacked, resulting in much weaker German artillery fire on
the opening day of the attack. This bombardment disrupted German
units and caused them to attack at different times on 5 July. In
the south, the Red Army chose to fire largely against the German
infantry and tanks in their assembly areas. This was partially
successful in delaying the German attack, but caused few
casualties.

Main operations â€” the northern face

Northern ground battle

The 9th Army attack in the north
fell far short of its objectives on 5 July. The attack sector had
been correctly anticipated by the Red Army Central Front. Attacking
on a 45-kilometre-wide front, the Germans found themselves trapped
in the huge defensive minefields, and needed engineering units to
come up and clear them under artillery fire. Although a few
Goliath and Borgward
remote-controlled engineering vehicles were available to clear
lanes in the minefields, they were not generally successful. Even
when the vehicles cleared mines, they had no on-board marking
system to show following tanks where the cleared lanes were. Red
Army units covered the minefields with small arms and artillery
fire, delaying German engineers clearing manually; German losses
were high. For example, the German 653rd Heavy PanzerjĂ¤ger
Battalion began the attack with 49 Ferdinand
self-propelled guns; 37 of them were lost in the minefields before
17:00 on 5 July. Although most of the lost vehicles were mobility kills rather than permanent losses,
they were out of action until they could be repaired. They were
also easier for Red Army artillery to knock out permanently.
However, since the Germans were advancing, any repairable vehicles
could be recovered, repaired, and put back into action.

The Germans also noted a fundamental flaw in their armoured
vehicles, particularly the Elefant. Although
excellent against any Soviet tank at long to medium range, they
lacked secondary armament and were vulnerable to attacks from
Soviet slit trenches once separated from the heavy machine gun
protection of the lighter tanks, vehicles and infantry. Guderian
noted in his diary:

There are a number of factors that explain the 9th Armyâ€™s lack of
progress, mainly the combination of Soviet defensive planning and
German lack of concentration of force. German armor was committed
piecemeal rather than in strength, and often without sufficient
infantry support. Soviet defensive preparation was also a major
factor. The Central Front under Marshal Rokossovskiy had correctly
anticipated the likely areas of German attack and had fortified those areas very heavily, holding
other areas more thinly. The 13th Army, which bore the brunt of
the German attack, was far stronger in men and anti-tank guns than the other Central Front
units, and indeed held the strongest defensive positions in the
entire salient.

A major planning error by the Soviet Supreme High Command and the
General Staff was their expectation that the main weight of the
German attack would come in the north on the Central Front, causing
them to concentrate more strength there. Also, the Central Front
chose to defend the tactical zone (to a depth of 20 km) very
heavily, leaving far fewer units in the depths of the defense.
Model's army had fewer tanks than Manstein had in the south, and
the German 9th Army also committed major units piecemeal due to
some disruption caused by the Soviet pre-emptive artillery barrage.
Finally, the 9th Army led with reinforced infantry divisions that
were already in the line facing the Red Army, rather than attacking
with uncommitted units.

Review of attack frontages and depth of German penetration shows
clearly that the Red Army defensive tactics were succeeding.
Beginning with a 45-kilometre-wide attack frontage on 5 July, the
next day, the German 9th Army attacked on a 40-kilometre front.
This dropped to 15 kilometres wide by 7 July, and only 2 kilometres
on 8â€“9 July. Each day, the depth of the German advance slowed: 5
kilometres on the first day, 4 on the second, never more than
2 km each succeeding day. By 10 July, the 9th Army had been
stopped in its tracks.

A great deal of the Soviet defensive success was down to its method
of fire control, known to the Germans as Pakfront. This
relied upon a group of 10 or more anti-tank guns under a single
commander, which would fire at a single target at a time. These
positions were protected with heavy concentrations of mortar and
machine-gun nests, which were ordered to fire on German infantry
only.

On 12 July, Zhukov ordered Operation Kutuzov. Powerful Soviet
forces, including the 3rd Tank Army and the Soviet 11th Guards
Army, broke through the weak German lines to the north of the Orel
bulge. The flank of the German 9th and 2nd Panzer Armies were
dangerously exposed.

Air operations

The real operation opened on 5 July 1943. The Soviet Air Force, now
aware even of the exact time of the planned German offensive,
launched a massive attack on the Luftwaffe airbases in the area, in
an attempt to counter the classic German tactic of eliminating
local air support within the first hours of an operation. The next
few hours turned into possibly the largest air battle ever fought.
However, Soviet co-ordination was lacking: the fighters were
dispatched too soon and had to withdraw due to a shortage of fuel
before their bombers arrived. The German fighters had no trouble
taking off and engaging the approaching attackers;BergstrĂ¶m 2007,
p.26. the Red Air Force lost 120 aircraft.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p.
27.

Red Army ZIS-3 76.2 mm divisional
guns, often used in the antitank role.

The Luftwaffe directed an all-out effort against Red Army positions
on the northern flank during the first day of the operation, while
Soviet deployment errors granted the Luftwaffe initial air
superiority. General-Leytenant Rudenko, unsure whether
this was the major German attack, ordered only one-third of his
fighter strength to engage the masses of German aircraft, while the
rest stood down. The outnumbered Red Army units were engaged over
their own rear areas and suffered heavily. The German fighters had
flown ahead of the bomber and Stuka units to prevent Red
Army intervention. The unprotected Stuka and
Kampfgruppen then began their assault on the Red Army
positions unhindered. The Soviets fed in their aerial strength
piecemeal and suffered heavy losses.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 38.

On 6 July, huge air battles raged over the northern sector.
However, there was a lack of Soviet air-to-ground liaison officers,
and effectiveness suffered. Counter-attacking Red Army units often
took ground very quickly, and there was no effective system in
place to inform the Soviet air fleets in time; as a result Soviet
bombers attacked areas now occupied by Soviet forces, inflicting
casualties. The initial air battles enabled the Luftwaffe to at
least maintain a balance in numbers, if not air superiority, over
the area held by 47 PanzerKorps. The Luftwaffe concentrated most of
its I.Fliegerkorps units to this sector.
The Soviet 17th Guards Rifle Corps reported "Appearing in
formations of 20â€“30 or even 60â€“100 aircraft at a time, the enemy
air force played a vital role in the battle".BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p.
47.The Soviets suffered heavily on the first day, 16 VA losing 91
aircraft (including 22 Sturmoviks, nine A-20 Havocs, and 60 fighters). The air support
the Germans gave their army was crucial. The War Diary of the
Soviet 19th Independent Tank Corps noted:

However, the Soviets did gain a notable success on 6 July. The 299
ShAD of the 16 VA, equipped with the Sturmovik, arrived
over the front when the German fighters had returned to base. The
47 Panzerkorps had broken cover and attacked the 17th
Guards Rifle Corps and the 16th Tank Corps, and were out in the
open and vulnerable to air attack. The Soviet attack was
devastating to the tanks of 47 Panzerkorps. Flying as low
as six metres the Soviets destroyed as many as 20 in this action,
and 40 damaged, for the loss of one IL-2.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp.
44â€“5.The Luftwaffe was also experiencing fuel shortages,
and as a result, the number of Stuka and bomber sorties
were declining from as early as 6 July. On 5 July, these groups had
flown 647 and 582 sorties; by 6 July, this had dropped to 289 and
164 missions. Most of the German combat missions were flown by
fighters; although they continued to heavily outscore the Soviets,
the continual pressure of Soviet aviation began to take its toll on
the Luftwaffe and the Heer.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 48â€“9.

On 7 July, the Soviet 16 VA flew fewer sorties than the German 1.
Fliegerdivision (1,687 to 1,185), but the Soviets, with a few
exceptions, were able to prevent further heavy losses, and
inflicted serious damage to German ground formations. Units of the
16 VA, including IL-2s, destroyed 60 German tanks and 34 motor
vehicles without loss. General der FliegerFriedrich Kless noted that the Soviet
attacks against supply lines and direct interdiction or ground
attack missions were not effective due to the poor skill levels of
Soviet airmen, and the Soviets always met with heavy losses.
However, while the lack of Soviet skill was true, Soviet aviation
was effective, and did not suffer the heavy losses Kless suggested.
Soviet losses in the air of bombers and ground attack aircraft on 7
July were light, 30 aircraft, for six German Fw 190s in the
northern sector.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp. 50â€“3.

The Luftwaffe also conducted effective operations at low cost,
claiming to destroy 14 Soviet tanks, 60 motorised vehicles, 22
artillery pieces and eight ammunition stores. A further 22 tanks
were claimed damaged and 25 artillery guns "silenced".BergstrĂ¶m
2007, p. 53.In the first three days of fighting over the northern
flank, Luftflotte 6 lost a
total of 39 aircraft against Soviet losses of 386.BergstrĂ¶m 2007,
p. 120.

Luftwaffe operations in the Orel Bulge, 16â€“31 July

After a week of heavy fighting, the Wehrmacht had advanced only
12 km. On 12 July, the Soviets launched their own offensive
against the Second Panzer Army
and the German Ninth Army at Orel. The situation became critical
for the German forces: the Soviet 11th Guards Army could cut off
both German armies.

The Luftwaffe was called upon to halt the offensive, and its
actions proved decisive to saving the German armies from
encirclement. The Luftwaffe organised a massive aerial offensive to
blunt the threat. On 16 July, it flew 1,595 sorties, double that of
the previous days.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 102. In daylight hours the
Sturzkampfgeschwader and Schlachtgeschwader
attacked Red Army armoured units while the Kampfgruppen targeted the rear supply
lines.

On 17 July, further attempts to intervene on the battlefield were
hindered by the arrival of an overwhelming Soviet aviation force.
This forced German bombers to operate from higher altitudes, and
bombing accuracy suffered. The Soviet 16 VA had greatly improved
its organisation and ground control methods, and its pilots were
now improving their tactics. The Soviets took advantage of their
superior strength to initiate a series of huge aerial offensives
against German positions, using waves of up to 350 aircraft per
strike.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp. 105â€“6. The offensive resulted in
large-scale air battles. The limited engagement of the German
bomber and ground attack units resulted in only 24 Soviet tanks and
31 lorries being destroyed. However the German fighter units
destroyed 90 Soviet aircraft on that date, for 12 losses.
1.Fliegerdivision had carried out 1,693 sorties
that day.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp. 108â€“9.

Another 1,100 sorties were flown on 18 July, and the Junkers Ju 87
units took a heavy toll of Red Army tank forces; Ju 87s of StG 3
destroyed at least 50 tanks.BergstrĂ¶m 2007 p. 108.

On 19 July, the Luftwaffe initiated the aerial operation
that, alone, would stop a Soviet breakthrough at Khotynets, which
would have taken out a vital rail link, and severed the connection
between the two German armies.Some Stuka pilots flew up to
six missions on this date. The Fw 190 equipped SchG 1 also
contributed to the attacks with 250 kg bombs. Mixed formations
of Hs 129s and Ju 87s attacked the Soviet tank formations in three
days of "relentless" action against the Is Tank Corps and 70th Tank
Brigade. Oberfeldwebel Hans Hans Krohn, a radio operator
of a II./StG 3 Ju 87 recalled:

The Soviet losses were so heavy that they were forced to retreat.
Tanks that had managed to reach German positions had been quickly
routed. 1.Fliegerdivision had claimed 135 tanks put out of
action on 19 July, with a total of 66 destroyed. The 1st Tank Corps
had only 33 tanks remaining on 20 July.Realising the German armies
were about to escape the trap, the Stavka ordered the 3rd
Tank Army to pursue the encirclement, and at least catch and
destroy the German 35. Army Corps. Once again the
Luftwaffe contributed decisively. The Soviet fighter units
in the area were disorganised due to constant redirections along
the front, and as a result were overwhelmed by a concentrated
attack by Luftwaffe forces throughout the day. Over 1,500
sorties were flown, and 38 Soviet tanks, 85 vehicles, eight tank
transporters and ten pontoon bridges were destroyed for 13
losses.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 113.Model sent a message to von Greim
thanking him: "the Luftwaffe's intervention was absolutely
decisive to prevent a second, more disastrous Stalingrad".

Main operations â€” the southern face

Southern ground battle

A Waffen-SS Tiger I engages enemy
armor.

The Tiger's advanced optics and accurate main gun allowed it
to effectively hit targets at extended ranges.

In the south, the Voronezh Front
fared less well against the 4th Panzer Army with its
LII Corps,
XLVIII Panzer
Corps and II SS Panzer
Corps. The II SS Panzer Corps attacked on a
narrower frontage against two Red Army rifle regiments. The
armored spearhead of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army forced its way
forward, and by 6 July, had reached some 15 km past the lines.
Again, Red Army planning played a big role. In the south, the Red
Army had not been able to pinpoint the German attack sectors; this
forced them to spread out their defenses more evenly. For example,
three of the four armies of the Voronezh Front had about 10
antitank guns per kilometre of front; this contrasts sharply with
the Central Front's distribution of guns, which was twice as heavy
in the active sectors. Also, the Voronezh Front made the decision
to hold the tactical zone much more thinly, leaving a much higher
proportion of units in deeper positions compared to the Central
Front. Finally, the Voronezh Front was weaker than the Central
Front, yet it faced much stronger German forces.

The German forces made steady progress, but, as in the north,
attack frontages (width) and penetration depth tended to drop as
the attack proceeded. The trend was not as marked as in the north,
however. Beginning with a 30-kilometre-wide attack frontage on 5
July, this dropped to 20-kilometres wide by 7 July and 15 km
by 9 July. Likewise, the depth of the penetration dropped from
9 km on 5 July to 5 km on 8 July and 2â€“3 km each day
thereafter until the attack was cancelled.

Red Army minefields and artillery were again successful in delaying
the German attack and inflicting losses. The ability of dug-in Red
Army units to delay the Germans was vital to allow their own
reserves to be brought up into threatened sectors. Over 90,000
additional mines were laid during the operations by small mobile
groups of engineers, generally working at night immediately in
front of the expected German attack areas. There were no
large-scale captures of prisoners nor any great loss of artillery,
again indicating that Soviet units were giving ground in good
order.

German losses can be seen in the example of the GroĂźdeutschland
Division, which began the operation with 118 tanks. On 10 July,
after five days of fighting, the division reported it had 3 Tigers,
6 Panthers, and 11 Pzkw-III and Pzkw-IV tanks operational. XLVIII
Panzer Corps reported, overall, 38 Panthers operational with 131
awaiting repair, out of the 200 it started with on 5 July.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that the threat of a German
breakthrough in the south had to be reckoned with. The Steppe Front had been formed in the months
prior to the operation as a central reserve for such an
eventuality. Units of the Steppe Front began movement to the south
as early as 9 July. This included the 5th Guards Tank Army and
other combined-arms armies.

The
German flank, however, stood unprotected as the Red Army 7th Guards Army stalled Kempf's divisions, aided by
heavy rain, after the Germans had crossed the Donets River. The 5th Guards Tank Army, reinforced with
two additional tank corps, moved into positions to the east of
Prokhorovka and had started to prepare a counterattack of their own
when II SS Panzer Corps arrived. An intense struggle ensued. The
Red Army managed to halt the SSâ€”but only just. Little now stood in
the way of the 4th Panzer Army, and a German breakthrough looked
like a very real possibility. The Soviets therefore decided to
deploy the rest of 5th Guards Tank Army.

Prokhorovka

Accounts of this battle remain shrouded in controversy and dispute.
The original Soviet account of brave but reckless if ultimately
successful mass Red Army assault on heavy German armour is now
generally discounted; the most recent revisionist accounts suggest
a complete Soviet debacle, with the Soviet charge on German armour
being disrupted not by German tanks but fundamentally because so
many T-34s fell down a Soviet anti-tank ditch.Richard J. Evans, The
Third Reich at War, London, Allen Lane, 2008, p. 488.

What is generally not disputed though is that the Red Army did
enough, at very high cost, to stop any German breakthrough here. In
that sense this remains a crucial turning point of the battle and
indeed of the Great Patriotic War: here the blitzkrieg was ground
to a halt, albeit at a huge cost.

Memorial on Prokhorovka Field

On the
morning of 12 July, Hoth, determined to push for a breakthrough,
scraped together the available reserves of the 4th Panzer Army and
advanced on Prokhorovka at the same time that the 5th Guards Tank Army launched a series
of attacks as part of multi-front counteroffensive scheduled for 12
July and in an attempt to catch the Germans off balance. The
SS and Guards units collided west of Prokhorovka in open country
punctuated by farms, rolling hills and gullies. What happened next
is open to debate with the release of new information from
archives.

In stifling heat, an eight-hour battle began. The German units had
494 tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces in the attack, with
90% operational. The men of the 5th Guards Tank Army had not yet
been committed to battle, so they were fresh. The German force
found itself heavily outnumbered. After the battle was over, the
Soviets held the area, and were able to recover their disabled
tanks and wounded crews.

The battle can best be described as a very costly tactical loss,
but an operational draw for the Red Army. Neither the 5th Guards
Tank Army nor the II SS Panzer Corps accomplished their missions
that day.

The air battle was also intense: von Manstein had intended it to be
the decisive blow against the Red Army forces, preventing a
breakthrough to Oboyan and Kursk. The 5th Guards Tank Army had
moved mainly at night, bringing 593 tanks and 37 self-propelled
artillery pieces into position at Staryy Oskol.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p.
77. The Soviet had suffered bitter losses, and in this region the 2
Va could muster only 96 Sturmoviks, 266 fighters and 140
bombers. The 17 VA could muster just over 300 machines. 17 VA flew
893 sorties over this sector of the front, while VIII.Fliegerkorps flew
654.Sturmoviks from 291 ShAD attacked the II. SS Panzer
Division throughout the day, causing significant damage to German
armoured formations. Simultaneously, waves of Hs 129s and Ju 87s
caused losses to the 69th Army and 5th Guards Army. Although Soviet
tank losses are unknown, a report from the 29th Tank Corps reported
"heavy losses in tanks through enemy aircraft and artillery". It
also mentioned losses were so heavy that the advance had to be
halted, and a switch to the defensive ordered.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, pp.
79â€“80.The Luftwaffe had complete air superiority over
Prokhorovka, due to the VVS being concentrated over the
flanks of the 4.Panzerarmee.However the Soviet 31 Guard
Tank Corps, and the 33rd Guards Rifle Corps fought the II SS
Totenkopf to a standstill, employing the tactic of getting
in close to German armour and attacking the vulnerable sides of the
Tigers. The II SS was soon forced onto the defensive. Although the
German formation held, it lost 50 percent of its armour in a
prolonged engagement. By the night of 11-12 July, the only success
the Germans had to show for their losses was a captured bridgehead
over the Donets river at Rzavets. The LSSAH had been
stopped by the Soviet 18 Tank Corps; III Panzerkorps and
Das Reich were checked by the 2nd Guards Tank Corps and
two more Soviet reserve corps.

Tank losses have been a contentious subject ever since. Red Army
losses have been stated to be as low as 200 or as high as 822
tanks, but the loss records now show about 300 complete losses,
with a similar number damaged. Likewise, German losses have been
reported to be as low as 80 or into the hundreds, including
"dozens" of Tigers. This number is impossible to establish because
of the German way of counting lost tanks. 60 to 70 German tanks are
thought to have been total losses.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 81.In addition
to total losses, an unknown number of tanks were damaged, many of
which would have been lost in repair depots during the subsequent
retreat as a consequence of the Red Army post-Kursk
counteroffensive, Operation Polkovodets
Rumyantsev. Nipe puts the number of operational tank reductions
in the whole corps at 70-80, but it is unclear how many of these
would have been in short-term or long-term repair. In any event,
the losses for both the II SS Panzer Corps and the 5th Guards Tank
Army in the â€śgreatest tank battle of all timeâ€ť fell short of the
mythic proportions sometimes attributed to the Prokhorovka
engagement.

Air battles

The German advance in the South

The offensive opened, as in the north, with a mass of air activity.
German air attacks helped badly maul the Soviet 57th and 67th Guard
Divisions. As the Luftwaffe shifted its attention against the 6th
Tank Corps, it left the skies empty over the 4.Panzerarmee.As a result of Soviet superiority in the air,
reinforced Soviet defences, and a lack of heavy air support, the
GroĂźdeutschland Division had around 80 of its 350 tanks
operational. Later, the 2nd Soviet Guards Tank Corps attacked the
flank of the 1st SS Division
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. In desperation, the Germans
launched waves of Fw 190 Fs of 4.(Pz)/Schlachtgeschwader 1 and Hs 129s
of I./Jagdgeschwader 51'sPanzerjĂ¤gerstaffel to halt the attack. Using SD-2 anti-personnel bombs, the Luftwaffe was
able to inflict heavy losses to Soviet soldiers and "soft"
vehicles. The Luftwaffe attacked the Soviet 2nd Tank Corps from
dawn to dusk, and HauptmannBruno
Meyer, Staffelkapitain of I./Sch.G 1 noted: "It was
impossible for us to count how many tanks we knocked out". As a
result of the losses sustained by the Soviet 2nd Tank Corp, the 5th
Guards Tank Corps began their offensive against the II.SS
Panzerkorps alone, and failed, with heavy losses.BergstrĂ¶m
2007, pp. 56â€“7.By the end of the day, 2 VA lost 45 aircraft
(including 22 Sturmoviks), 17 VA lost 37
Sturmoviks alone. The Soviets lost approximately 90
machines on this date, while the Luftwaffe suffered 11
losses, mostly Ju 87s. The Soviets began attacking German rear
areas at night, with the 2 and 17 VA flying 269 sorties in 24
hours.BergstrĂ¶m 2007, p. 58.

The end in the south

Significantly, earlier in the operation, the attacking German units
had been squeezed into ever-narrowing frontages by the defenders.
Elite Red Army Guards Airborne units were holding firm on the
flanks of the very narrow German penetration. The Germans could not
squeeze many units into this narrow front, nor did they have the
combat power to widen the penetration. Thus, as the attackers moved
forward, they continually lost strength due to the need to hold
their own flanks.

While the German offensive had been stopped in the north by 10
July, in the south the overall situation still hung in the balance,
even after 12 July. German forces on the southern wing, exhausted
and heavily depleted, had nevertheless breached the first two
defensive belts and believed (wrongly) that they were about to
break through the last belt. In fact at least five more defensive
zones awaited them, although they were not as strong as the initial
belts (and some of them did not have troops deployed). Red Army
defenders had been weakened, and major parts of their reserve
forces had been committed. Still, the available uncommitted Red
Army reserves were far larger than the few available German
reserves.

On 16 July, German forces withdrew to their start line. Severely
depleted, the Germans then had to face Operation
Rumyantsev, an offensive launched to smash the German forces
in the Belgorod-Kharkov area on 3 August. Belogorod fell on the 5
August, and on 23 August, Kharkov fell, despite fierce resistance
from German forces. With the capture of Kharkov, the Soviets
considered the Battle of Kursk over.

Hitler cancels the operation

On the night of 9â€“10 July, the Western Allies mounted an amphibious invasion of Sicily. Three days later, Hitler summoned von
Kluge and von Manstein to his
Wolfsschanze headquarters in East
Prussia and declared his intention to "temporarily" call off
Operation Zitadelle. Von Manstein attempted to dissuade him,
arguing that Zitadelle was on the brink of victory: "on no account
should we let go of the enemy until the mobile reserves which he
had committed were decisively beaten". In an unusual reversal of
their roles, Hitler gave von Manstein a few more days to continue
the offensive, but on 17 July, he ordered a withdrawal and
cancelled the operation. He then ordered the entire SS Panzer
Korps to be transferred to Italy.

Hitler's decision to call off the operation at the height of the
tactical battle has since been strongly criticized by German
generals in their memoirs, and also by some historians. For
example, it has been pointed out that the SS Panzer Korps would
have taken three months to be transferred to Sicily, and thus could
not possibly have affected the outcome there, while its
contribution to the Kursk operation was vital.

In any event only one German division, 1st SS Panzer Leibstandarte
Adolf Hitler, departed for Italy, and without their
equipment. The others remained behind to try to stem the Red Army
counteroffensive launched in the wake of the failed German
offensive.

Red Army counteroffensives

Operation Kutuzov, the Red Army
counteroffensive at Orel, decisively changed
the situation. German Ninth Army units had to be redeployed to
resist this attack instead of continuing their own offensive; units
from the southern pincer were given warning orders on 15 July to
withdraw back to the start lines held on 4 July. The purpose of the
withdrawal was to shorten the front, enabling the Germans to
re-form a reserve.

To the south, the Red Army needed more time to re-group after the
losses sustained in July, and could not launch its counteroffensive
again until 3 August when Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev
commenced. Aided by diversionary attacks on the
Mius River further south, the Red Army took von
Manstein's hard-won Belgorod. Fireworks in Moscow marked the capture of
Belgorod and Orel, a celebration that henceforward became an
institution with the recapture of each Soviet city. On 11 August,
the Red Army reached Kharkov, a city Hitler had sworn to defend at
all costs. The German units had reduced manpower and shortages of
equipment.

Field Marshal von Manstein believed the outcome of the offensive
phase of Kursk to be much more grey than black and white. For
although the Germans were forced to withdraw, the Germans â€śmanaged
to, at least, partly destroy the mobile units of the enemyâ€™s
operational reserves.â€ť However, despite the losses it suffered in
the defensive phase of the Kursk operations, the Red Army managed
to go over to a very successful offensive within two weeks, pushing
the Germans back to the Dnieper and
towards western Ukraine, and Manstein saw the overall campaign as a
disaster for the Germans.

By 22 August, utter exhaustion had affected both sides, and the
operations of the Kursk salient ended. It was followed by a series
of successful Red Army operations that led to the crossing of the Dnieper, and the
liberation of Kiev during the autumn of 1943.

German casualties listed in German sources during the operation
proper (as opposed to the following Red Army counter-offensives
north and south of the salient) in the period 5 to 20 July 1943
were between 50,000Glantz & House, p. 275. and 57,000. German
tank write-offs were between 278 and 323. Yet the numbers of
destroyed tanks alone does not tell the entire story. For example,
Zetterling and Frankson list only 33 tanks destroyed for the three
divisions of the SS Panzer Corps as of 17 July, but the number of
operational tanks on 17 July as of 19:15 had dropped by 139,
leading one to assume that 106 tanks were damaged and not able to
take part in the battle, at least temporarily.

Red Army casualties were 177,847 as listed in Krivosheev.Restayn
& Moller, Volume II, p. 341. However, Restayn and Moller point
out that Krivosheev's figures for Central Front strength show a
decline in strength during the period 5 to 11 July 1943 of
approximately 92,700, of which only 33,897 are accounted for as
dead or wounded with no explanation given for the further 58,893
losses. Restayn and Moller consider that the missing 58,893 should
be accounted for as casualties, in which case total Red Army
casualties in this period would be approximately 235,000 (ie
177,847 plus 58,893). Red Army armor losses, again according to
Krivosheev, were 1,614 tanks and assault guns destroyed.

From this point on, a new pattern emerged. The initiative had
firmly passed to the Red Army, while the Germans spent the rest of
the war reacting to their moves. A new front had opened in Italy, diverting
some of Germany's resources and attention. Both sides had
their losses, but only the Soviets had the manpower and the
industrial production to recover fully. The Germans never regained
the initiative after Kursk and never again launched a major
offensive in the East.

Moreover, the loss further convinced Hitler of the incompetence of
his General Staff. He continued his interference
in military matters progressively, so that by the end of the war he
was involved in tactical decisions. However, the opposite was true
for Stalin. After seeing Stavka's planning
justified on the battlefield, he trusted his advisors more, and
stepped back from operational planning, only rarely overruling
military decisions.

Predictable results ensued for both sides: the German Army went
from loss to loss as Hitler attempted personally to micromanage the day-to-day operations of what
soon became a three-front war, while the Red Army gained more
freedom and became more and more fluid as the war continued.

Notes

Soviet military deception in the Second World War by
David M. Glantz; Routledge, 1989ISBN071463347X, 9780714633473, 644
pages, pp. 149â€“59

Glantz & House 1995, p. 167.

Overy 1995, p. 87.

Source: German Nation Archive microfilm publication T78,
Records of the German High Command(Oberkommando der Wehrmacht)
Roll 343, Frames 6301178-180 confirms Hitler's teletype to Rommel
about reinforcing southern Italy with armoured forces destined to
be used for Zitadelle.

Mulligan 1987, p. 239.

Clarke 1966, p. 313.

Clarke 1966, p. 327.

BergstrĂ¶m, Mikhailov, Dikov & Antipov 2000, p. 16.

pp.82-113, Glantz (1990)

TĂ¶ppel 2002, p. 33â€“34.

Mulligan 1987, pp. 236, 254.

Clarke 1966, p. 329.

Restayn and Moller 2002, p. 333.

Overy 1997, p. 204.

Clark 1966, pp. 331â€“32

Overy 1997, p. 205.

It is often claimed that the Luftwaffe halted the
Western Front's advance on 17 July, but this is a misunderstanding
of the chronology; it actually happened two days later.